1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is in the field of general-purpose computers, and pertains particularly to pre-caching data to DRAM memory for specific applications.
2. Discussion of the State of the Art
Computer systems typically have data storage systems from which data is read and to which data is written during program execution. Permanent storage is typically accomplished via a disk drive or other persistent media. Computers also typically have Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), which is volatile memory, meaning that the contents are lost when power is switched off. It is well known that read and write data access is generally slower with persistent media than with DRAM. Because of this, computers in the art often temporarily hold some data in DRAM for quicker access by the central processing unit (CPU). Loading this data prior to the time when it needs to be accessed is called pre-caching.
For optimal performance, computer programs and applications need to access most urgent and frequently used data as quickly as possible. The system will typically learn to cache, making that data more readily available. Still, the machine learning takes time, and does not always produce the optimum performance, especially in the case of certain applications which may need to access large amounts of infrequently-used data. Therefore, what is clearly needed is a method to enable the computer to configure DRAM to have a cache portion, and to cache data in a manner to optimize performance for data-intensive programs that are important, but are not necessarily cache-friendly.